This paper explores the relevancy of apprenticeships for professional training. While often neglected in current educational theory, apprenticeship training is common in the arts and in the mentoring and supervision of professionals. The apprenticeship model may provide solutions for some of the problems of the current educational system such as…

A study of learning strategies in second language learning, of both English and other languages, presents a theory of the role learning strategies play and uses it to examine specific studies and to integrate research results. The research and theory described here are based on a cognitive information processing perspective of human thought and…

This study explores the effects of cooperative and mastery learning methods, alone and in combination, on first and second grade students' learning and retention of basic economic facts. A 2 X 2 (cooperative X mastery) factorial design compared the achievement of 120 students randomly assigned by grade level stratification to one of four treatment…

The best learning occurs with a variety of learning experiences; it has been said that we retain 10% of what we see, 20% of what we hear, 50% of what we see and hear, and 80% of what we see, hear and do. Learning to make sense of the senses that the arts address (seeing, hearing, feeling) requires the development of special perceptual skills.…

Significant curricular change extends into most other facets of schooling, including teaching, learning, and the school culture. This document reports findings of the Curriculum Reform Project, which conducted case studies of educational reforms in nine middle and senior high schools across the United States; prepared a cross-site analysis of the…

Education reform is an ongoing process that requires a major commitment over a long period of time. This volume, the second in a series of three, presents case-study findings of a 4-year research project on curriculum reform, with a focus on science education, mathematics education, and higher order thinking across the disciplines. The study, the…

As teaching pragmatic competence is considered to be one of the neglected aspects in English language teaching in Japan, this paper investigates the teaching of conversational English implicature of 126 Japanese English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) learners. University student participants were divided into three groups and given a multiple choice…

This paper investigates the beliefs about language learning held by 53 first-month university students enrolled in Swahili compared to those of 113 students of French and Spanish. Based in part upon the research design and instrument of Elaine Horwitz (University of Texas-Austin), this paper isolates the results from a larger study of eight…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of spatial ability level and window presentation style of tiled and overlapped computer displays on the achievement of dental hygiene students. Participants were 43 first-term Dental Hygiene students enrolled full-time at a University School of Dental Medicine. Phase one of this project…

The view of learning that underlies standard test theory is inconsistent with the view rapidly emerging from cognitive and educational psychology. Learners become more competent not simply by learning more facts and skills, but by reconfiguring their knowledge; by "chunking" information to reduce memory loads; and by developing…

This document is a collection of papers dealing with science achievement and teaching and learning strategies. The first paper, "Quality in the Science Curriculum," discusses quality objectives, quality learning opportunities, quality methods of instruction, quality in the philosophy of education, and quality evaluation procedures. It argues that…

Curricula are both the arena and the result of the struggle for hegemony in educational discourse and practice, but teachers have some freedom to give their own interpretations to the values they want to develop in their students. This paper gives examples of how teachers combine stimulating the development of specific values with teaching…

This paper describes college classes according to their prevailing goals and incentive structures to determine the extent that they can be characterized as emphasizing mastery and performance goals and individualistic, cooperative, and competitive incentives. A second focus is on the relationship between these goals and incentives. Participants…

Social cognitive theory suggests that students use both affective and cognitive study strategies in directing their own learning processes. This study explored the correspondences between both strategy types and the self-regulated learning of rural at-risk students. Sixty-seven 11th- and 12th-graders from 12 rural high schools completed the…

A study examined the use of dialectic (Learning) journals in a grade 3 social studies class during the 1993-94 school year. The topic was "Communities Need Each Other," and categories used for the journals were: (1) What I Learned; (2) What It Means; (3) What It Means To Me and My Family; and (4) What It Means To The World. The eight subjects…